I think those adults all learned from the same book on how to torture their children. We were probably born too early—born into a time when this was so rampant that people didn’t even flinch at seeing violence against a child. My mother, that idiot, once told me I used to have unexplained bruises all over my limbs when I was still a baby. Then she walked in and seen my father pinching and squeezing me. She only told me this after I became an adult, and the way she said it... she actually chuckled, as if it were some cute, harmless memory. It’s sickening. I just read a news story about a wife who finally took her husband to court because he caned their son.

Yeah, I change into clothes that I could actually walk down to the lobby in. It’s not because I’m going out; it’s just to feel a little more normal. I’ve even started taking out my old perfumes and wearing them at home, along with a bit of makeup. At the very least, it makes me feel better when I see myself in the mirror.